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Mainstream, Vol XLVI No 34

How to Protect the Weakest OBC Communities

A Dissent Note May Provide The Answer

Sunday 10 August 2008, by Bharat Dogra

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In the process of implementing reservations for OBCs (Other Backward Classes) on the basis of the Mandal Commission Report, it has been seen at many places that a few influential and powerful communities manage to corner the benefits, while the weakest communities get almost no benefits. How can we overcome this problem so that reservations can be implemented in a more just way to benefit all deserving communities?

How can we deny undue advantages to some powerful sections while maintaining our commitments to the really needy sections among them? This can be done by further sub-dividing the OBCs among the relatively powerful ones and really depressed ones. Such an approach is available right within the Mandal Commission Report, although in the form of a note of dissent by a member of the commission, L.R. Naik. Despite his differences with Naik, B.P. Mandal, the Chairman of the commission, had a special word of praise for him in the letter he wrote to the President while submitting the report “Shri L.R. Naik,” he wrote, “was the most hard working member in our lot. When other members were getting tired to continue the extensive tour of the country he was ever unfatigued.” Naik’s close involvement in his work and sincerity are also apparent in the short note of dissent submitted by him. He has classified OBCs further into Intermediate OBCs and Depressed OBCs. Giving due reasons for his note of dissent “not without feeling of regret and reluctance”, Naik states:

I hold very sincerely that castes/ classes mentioned in the common list, each having homogeneous and cohesive characteristic, are not at the same degree or level of social and educational backwardness and I fear that the safeguards recommended for their advancement will not percolate to the less unfortunate sections among them.

Further he states:

During the course of my extensive tours throughout the length and breath of India, I observed that a tendency is fast developing among the Intermediate Backward Class (IBC) to repeat the treatments or rather ill-treatments they themselves have received from times immemorial at the hands of the upper castes against their brethren, I mean the Depressed Backward Classes (DBCs).

Briefly, Naik identified the IBCs as those whose traditional occupation had been agricultural, market gardening, pastoral activities, village industries, petty business cum agricultural activities etc. These people “had co-existed since times immemorial with upper castes”. On the other hand, DBCs were those whose intermingling with the Indian society was either denied, prohibited and even segregated obviously on account of stigma of their traditional occupation , nomadism etc. resulting in their abysmally low social status.

According to Naik, these DBCs included ex-criminal tribes (unjustly classified as criminals by colonial rulers), nomadic and wandering tribes, primitive tribes (not specified as Scheduled Tribes), earth diggers, fishermen, boatmen, salt makers, washermen, shepherds, basket-makers, tanners etc.

According to Naik’s calculations, the population of OBCs is more or less evenly divided between the DBCs and the IBCs. He has recommended 15 per cent reservations for DBCs (out of the 27 per cent for all OBCs recommended by the Mandal Commission both in public services and the educational institutions.) Naik has also drawn up State-wise lists of all the DBCs which number more than 100 in several States.

While voicing his objections on this note of dissent, the Commission Chairman B.P.. Mandal, apart from conveying some legal objections, stated that the population figures of the so-called DBCs worked out by Naik were very arbitrary and based on pure conjectures. It is quite possible that due to working singlehandedly on this highly complex issue and also having been forced to complete this work in a very short time, Naik was not able to devote adequate care and caution in drawing up the state-wise list and in estimating the number of people belonging to these various castes. This, however, is a shortcoming which can be remedied by further scholarly work and extensive surveys.

The basic point raised by Naik, however, is well made. Even if all the details of his proposal are not accepted few impartial observers will disagree with his objections to grouping 52 per cent of India’s population comprising castes/classes of highly varying degrees of backwardness under one head and then treating them as a common entity for the purpose of giving certain benefits. As such the minute of dissent which occupies a very small space in the otherwise bulky report, deserves wider attention.

At the beginning of the Mandal Commission Report it has been written in bold letters: “There is equality only among equals. To equate unequals is to perpetuate inequality.” Naik’s dissent note appears to be quite in keeping with this statement.

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